It’s a vicious trend — the older I get and the more games I collect, the less time I have to play them — especially with others. I have piles of new games, old games, and arcade games that collect dust on a day-to-day basis. A couple of times throughout the year, some friends of mine and I organize “game nights” — a time and place where “big kids” can get together, forget about school/work/kids for a while and spend some time talking about, trading, and most importantly, playing games.
As several of my online friends were coming in from out of town to attend OEGE last weekend, we decided that after the show would be a great time for everyone to get together and have a game night. I volunteered my place (only fifteen minutes away from the OEGE show location).
My house was divided up into three main gaming locations: upstairs, downstairs, and the arcade (my backyard shed, converted into an 80’s-style arcade). Upstairs was easy — it already functions as a fulltime gameroom, with systems from the Atari 2600 and the NES all the way to the Xbox 360 and PS3 hooked up, ready for gaming action. Downstairs the Wii was hooked up to our main television, and tables were set up to accomidate additional gaming systems and/or trade boxes. The arcade didn’t need much work at all, other than a bit of vaccuuming and Windexing.
The cool (and sometimes stressful) thing about game nights are 1, you never know who’s going to show up, and 2, you never know what people are going to want to do. As anyone who’s ever thrown one can tell you, you never know what people are going to want to see or do for sure.
Namzep, Josh, Icbrkr and Crossbow talk about games.
For the next six hours, Icbrkr, Phosphor Dot Fossils and Kent (from Arkansas), Ubikuberalles (from New Mexico), Gapporin (from Missouri), as well as several Okies including Namzep and Tim (from Stillwater), Neist (from Norman, Crossbow, Vicky and Josh Risner (from Tulsa) along with myself and my good buddy spent the evening gaming. (Yes, I’m aware these people all have real names.) Several people brought their “trade boxes” — bins full of things they don’t want and would like to trade for things they do want — and a lot of time was spend wheeling and dealing in the living room.
OVGE founder Crossbow digs through someone’s trade box.
The arcade was a success, warts and all. There are many cooler arcades out there and I have no delusions about the state of my own. Sometimes where people see “arcade games” I see chunks of wood with scratches, patched-together controls and tired monitors. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and (thankfully) there were no technical meltdowns during the festivities. Classic arcade machines are cantankerous at best.
Icbrkr kicks off the arcade with a little Mortal Kombat 3 action as Kent looks on.
Attending OEGE along with people’s long drives took their toll on the partygoers. By 11pm things were winding down; Icbrkr, Gapporin and Ubikuberalles sauntered off to claim their respective bunks. One by one the faithful gamers admitted defeat and parted ways. It was an honor to to have so many people travel so far to come visit, hang out, and share the love of videogames with me and others, and I can’t wait until the next time.